before you cross the street, take my hand
by ratherembarrassing
Summary: Brittana and a Christmas baby.


Brittany was convinced that she had spent fourteen years with really angry lady parts because they just wanted a baby. It made perfect sense.

For a dancer, her first period had been incredibly early (for a regular person it was totally normal) and from that point on if she wasn't cramping she was just generally aching all the time. She'd been on birth control from the age of thirteen and when she discovered orgasms helped, sex had become her number one favorite activity. (Thank god for that birth control on so many levels.)

That was kind of how she and Santana had first started sleeping together. They'd been making out for a couple of months, mostly at parties but more and more on their own, like they had been that first time. It was just easier to pull Santana's leg between her own, rock up into it and then return the favor than go home and rub one out. The party they had been at had finished late, she was tired and hurting and Santana's bed had always been super comfortable to sleep in. Maybe they never would have gotten together if it weren't for her slightly defective baby-maker. She should bake it a thank you cake. It would probably like that. It deserved a cake anyway; turns out it wasn't defective at all.

The minute she had conceived, her body just said 'yep, there we go,' and that was that.

...

They'd been talking about it for years.

Junior year, Santana had taken her to Puerto Rico for spring break. It mostly involved a lot of drinking and sun baking and fucking, but they spent a couple of nights having dinner with Santana's extended family. Some of her older cousins had kids of their own, and Brittany watched, completely enchanted, as Santana sat at the kitchen table with a tiny boy in her lap, clapping his hands together and letting him grab at her necklace and play with her phone.

They'd gone back to their hotel that night, walking in the moonlight hand in hand, sober but snuggly. Curled up in their bed, sheets kicked off but wrapped around each other, Brittany had traced her hand over Santana's belly and whispered about the things flashing through her mind.

Santana kissed the top of Brittany's head, laced their fingers together over her own stomach, and agreed that a tiny baby for the two of them to love, some day, would be the most amazing thing. But she'd shifted their hands away from her own stomach and over to Brittany's.

"I want this baby to be both of us, as close as it can be," she sighed. "You don't have a brother, Britt." (But Santana had a brother; Michael, who used to drive them to dance on Thursday afternoons in middle school, who picked them up from high school parties whenever he was home from college. He'd never told on them for being drunk, never told on them for being all over each other. Michael had been in the Church choir when he was younger, and sometimes he was sharp-tongued with Santana but he would always apologize in the next breath. Michael had been the person Brittany called, many times, when things had been hard and she hadn't known what to do to help Santana. He was, in a lot of ways, very different from the Santana that people knew when they were younger. But even then, Brittany knew a different Santana, the one that only came out when they were hidden away. She was like the opposite of a flower, she bloomed in the shadows. Now she's just a regular flower; she's the kind you wait to see when the temperature is just right, but when you do see it, it's something special.

Brittany was like the hot house that kept Santana's temperature right all the time.)

Santana sucked in a breath, quietly letting out. "I asked him, once. If he would, you know."

Brittany blinked at that, because these were new thought to her, but apparently Santana had been thinking about this for some time. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Just, I don't know, it came up." She shrugged like it wasn't a big deal, but Brittany knew better.

"And what did he say?" Brittany ran her thumb over the fingers laced with her own.

"He said he can't wait to be an uncle."

"Awesome," she replied, and scooted up the bed to kiss Santana. She traced her finger down Santana's face, "I hope he or she gets your nose."

...

Brittany got lead dancer on Gaga's world tour, with a two month prep time, and so they moved to New York. California had been home for seven years; the Bay Area for four - "Go cardinal!" ("Go bears!" Santana would chime in here) - then LA for three. Neither were attached to much about LA other than the weather, so it hadn't been a hard decision, and even at the time Brittany had been aware that it would almost certainly all be down hill after this tour. She was twenty-five and had maybe two really good years left in her knees if she kept up the pace she had been taking. It was time to settle down.

The two months in New York had opened her eyes to a lot of things. She'd been looking for a way to transition out of show tours. She'd always assumed that would mean teaching, which would have been fun - she'd taught during college semesters and summers when she wasn't working, for some extra cash - but it wouldn't have been the same. As lead dancer, she'd had the opportunity to be involved in the choreography, and that brought with it a world of possibility. No more touring, not more wreaking havoc on her body, no more leaving Santana for months at a time.

After seven months with only six days in New York total, six days with Santana total, Brittany was more than ready to be done with that life, to start a new one.

...

Two years later, it worked the first try.

Neither of them had been even remotely prepared for the possibility of it working; they'd watched numerous couples try for months, even years, and they had gone in expecting the same.

Quinn had laughed so hard as the three of them sat in their lounge room, both of them too stunned to do more than blurt it out. They were supposed to be going out dancing, but now—

"What did you think was going to happen," she gasped, wiping at her eyes. "Oh my god, the next nine months are going to be hilarious," she said, mostly to herself, pulling out her phone to text Rachel.

...

When the doctor gave them a due date, Santana was stoked.

"A baby for Christmas, are you kidding me? Best present ever!" And then she realized what a Christmas baby means, and lost her shit.

"This kid is going to hate us, and they aren't even born yet."

"But… baby reindeer costumes." This part was pretty exciting.

"This kid is going to be spoiled rotten, because we suck and have to make up for it," Santana muttered to herself as they left the doctors office. "We're lesbians, for crying out loud, we could have picked any time to have a kid."

...

For as much as everything made sense to Brittany, Santana lost her mind.

Everything made her worry, and anything that could even maybe, sort of, possibly harm Brittany or the baby made her angry. Fish was seriously on her list. People who didn't get up for a pregnant woman on the subway? Dead people walking.

This was hilarious to Brittany up until Santana declared (no, really, declared it, like she was the Queen of England speaking for God — Brittany had bought her a crown and scepter for her birthday a couple of years back as a joke, but the joke had really been on her) there would be no more sex, because what if she like, punched the baby in the head? Brittany wasn't even into fisting, so she didn't think that would be a problem, but Santana had been super adamant.

"Honey, you understand how lady parts work, right?"

"I'm a lesbian, Britt, of course I do."

"The only vaginas you've ever played with are mine and your own."

"That's two more than most women, and not the point," she slid her arm around Brittany's slightly curved stomach, "the point is, that's my kid in there, and he has ears that work now. He'll get hurt."

Brittany snickered as she hauled herself up off the couch. "You just think he'll be able to hear us."

"That's psychologically damaging!" Santana called out. Brittany just laughed, because key lime pie was calling to her and this conversation could wait.

Later, they're curled up in bed watching Thursday night comedies, because Parks & Recreation was still on the air after all these years and Santana still found Rashida Jones incredibly hot. After half an hour of Rashida, it's pretty easy to get Santana to do most things (so many ice cream runs, and one time even a hotdog run, had been made in the late Thursday hours), and after going down on her ten minutes, she'll basically do anything (there were photos of the two of them sitting together on Santa's lap to prove it).

"I need you to do something for me," she said, as Santana was still catching her breath, arm thrown over her eyes.

"Anything," Santana panted, and Brittany had grinned.

...

In the end, she made Santana come with her to yoga twice a week, just to get her to calm down.

Brittany went every day, once she couldn't dance — "Are you some kind of demon," she'd asked Quinn. "Or are Jewish babies extra magical, and that's how you did all that dancing when you were pregnant. I guess that makes sense, even if Jesus wasn't the son of God, he was still a wizard." — but Santana could swing two mornings off work to come with her.

"Just do this for me once, and if you hate it, we can go see the Rockettes twice a week instead."

(Dancing girls seemed to have a calming effect on Santana.)

She'd grumbled the whole time, on the way there, during the class, as they got juice afterwards, and the whole subway home. They went to the Rockettes that night, but Santana came to yoga a couple of days later anyway, and again the next week.

So what if they did yoga and went to see dancing girls together and wandered around shops looking at stuffed animals and signing up for every birth class they could both get to. Santana would bitch when Quinn made fun of them, raise her voice and go on about how they weren't those lesbians who had to spend every minute of the day in some sort of contact with each other.

They were, but Brittany didn't have a problem with that. (Neither did Santana, but Quinn didn't need to know that.)

...

Her water broke three days before Christmas.

Brittany had a plan. Mostly it involved getting everything done and then sitting for a few days and letting Santana rub her feet and bring her peach water. Everything had been done a few days earlier, but every time she left the house she found something soft and fuzzy and she had to buy it, so there was always more to wrap.

It was going to be Santana opening the sixteen onesies with cute things on them that Brittany had bought in the last month, but she wrapped them all anyway, because that was half the fun.

She's just finished curling the ribbon on the last gift, when the ache in her back stepped it up a notch and then, well. Ew.

Santana tended to have really terrible timing, but for once she stepped through the door at the exact right moment. It probably wasn't the time for them to discover just how useless Santana was in a crisis, and it was Brittany who flagged them down a cab as Santana yelled at her phone to load the list she made for this exact situation.

In the back of the cab, Brittany patted her knee as she rested her head on Santana's shoulder.

"I hope this kid gets my mouth."

...

When it was almost over, and everything had been going perfectly for eight months, three weeks, two days, and four hours, she got really scared.

It was inconvenient timing, because the doctor was telling her just one more push and Santana was holding her hand so tightly it was hard to tell who was squeezing harder. But she just didn't want it to be over.

"No," she repeated, and dropped Santana's hand. "No, not yet."

"Come on, Britt, just one more," Santana spoke quietly into her ear. "Don't you want to meet the little guy?" she pushed sweat soaked hair off Brittany's forehead.

She did. She really did. She'd spent so long dreaming about his little face, and how he was going to have Santana's eyes and smile but her hair and hopefully not her nose, and how beautiful Santana would look holding their son. But a whole little person was just— "Brittany, you've done so well all this time, taking care of him. It's time to let me start helping. Please?"

How could she say no to that? Even if she was terrible at this every day, Santana would be there. Santana, who already did everything to make sure their life was perfect, would never let anything happen to their son.

"Okay," her voice cracked.

"Together," Santana replied. She slid in behind Brittany, holding her up and holding her hands, and they were going to going to do this together.

The last part was really not very fun. It hurt a lot, because duh, but Brittany didn't think a body is supposed to hold on to so many feelings all at once, and that's why afterwards she didn't really remember anything before this tiny little body was placed on her stomach, screaming and wriggling and covered in various fluids.

It's pretty much the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, and she gathered herself enough to lift a hand to hold him in place, Santana sobbing into her shoulder.

...

Robert Michael Lopez-Pierce came home on Christmas day.

("Bobby," Brittany had whispered into his hair.

"It sounds like 'baby'," Santana said over her shoulder.

Brittany tucked his little green hat over his ears. "Because he is our baby."

"Even when he's fifty seven and we're old and grey and probably can't walk," Santana sighed, catching his fingers around her own. "Yeah. Bobby.")

He had Santana's ears and eyes, and Brittany's smile. His hair was both of them. She's not sure about his nose yet. He liked to be unwrapped from his blankets and lie between them, tiny fists thumping at both of them. It was pretty much his only trick.

The pile of presents weren't opened until New Year, because who needed presents when they had this.


End file.
